


let me tell you what I do know

by hawkeish



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Blood, Dragon Age II - Act 3, F/M, Ficlet, Heartbreak, Letters, idk how to tag this other than 'it's sad and dramatic', so make of that what you will
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-18 03:48:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28985874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawkeish/pseuds/hawkeish
Summary: It's early in the morning, the day of the Chantry explosion.Not that Hawke knows that, until she finds her bed empty and a note waiting for her, written in familiar script.written for the DA Drunk Writing Circle and the wonderful marimoes, who fully enables my love of angst.
Relationships: Anders/Female Hawke, Anders/Hawke (Dragon Age)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	let me tell you what I do know

**Author's Note:**

> CW for blood, unintentional self-harm

_M._

_I don’t know how to tell you what I’ve done. What I will do._

_Only that I cannot be forgiven._

The note is a small thing. It lies on the desk, lit by cold moonlight that slithers in through the curtainless window. It has three straight edges, one ripped and torn. It has been folded in half what looks like a half dozen times; it has been read over, thought over, in agony. But the print is clear and cold. No restarts. No mistakes. Faultless.

A feather lays beside it, perfect in its loneliness. Black as death. Black as whatever comes after death.

“No,” Hawke murmurs. Or, she thinks she murmurs: no sound escapes her mouth, no _no,_ until she realises that she’s keening like an animal trapped in the jaws of a snare. The sound twists and wails through her empty estate, pulled thinner as it sings its dissonant hum until it is more twine than noise, and until she can’t breathe.

One moment she is stood, barely—a hand gripping the chair slotted under her writing desk so tightly that she might render the wood in two, the other trying to cover her mouth, trying to swallow the noise, as if silence will stop time.

The next, she screams again, until there is no other noise, and violently sweeps everything from the desk. The sound of glass shattering makes her want to laugh, but then her knees are buckling and she’s on the ground. Curled in on herself in an unholy genuflection, the sacraments of her worship—note, feather, smashed bottles of ink, blank reams of paper—scattered around her.

“No,” Hawke tries, again. This time, the sound is nothing more than a whisper. 

Slowly, silently, she straightens. She does not know what she is doing when she reaches for the note once more, and the feather. She does not know what she is doing when she forces herself to read the final lines, the feather clutched tight. It is as though she is a marionette, being played by unknown forces above.

_Let me tell you what I do know._

Hawke grips the feather tighter and tighter, until the sharp tip of its quill has rendered her flesh and the pain is magnificent.

_I love you._

Blood trickles down the soft curve of her palm, spilling onto the note like tears.

_I am more than one thing and not all of those things are good._

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading!! s/o again to Mo for sending me the most perfect prompt that allowed me to go full Drama (because that's what handers deserves)
> 
> the title and some of the lines in the note taken from Richard Silken, whose poetry is amazing


End file.
